It all began with a dream. An avid dancer, Deboshree Roy Chowdhury was a part of the Omaggio Performing Company when she suddenly had a dream about venturing into fashion. “I’ve always loved clothes and colours but after this dream I knew that I just had to make clothes,” she states. Chowdhury was further prompted to begin her own line after observing too many similar looking styles in the market. “Also, I loved Indian fabrics especially Jaipuri Cotton and Indigo. So I thought why not use Indian fabrics to create Western styles,” she says. Having no formal training in fashion designing, the whole project - Naach was born completely out of sheer passion about two years ago. Also, given that she is a dancer, the focus was on creating clothes which are very free in terms of movement.
She met Som, a man who had been in the clothing industry for over 20 years. “His set up is in Anjuna and he has repeatedly shown the ability to translate my visions into reality even though they seemed out of the ordinary. With him understanding my ideas and me soaking in and learning from him, Naach began to take shape,” she says.
Chowdhury has just recently changed the name to Studio Naach and held a launch party at Village Studio, Parra recently. Interestingly all those who attended the launch were given a chance to wear the clothes for the evening and then share their experience with her. “ Usually at fashion shows, models walk the ramp with different styles while people sit and watch. Here the idea was that the whole studio was the ramp and everyone was a model,” she explains.
Alongside she also debuted her men’s line. “One of my friends complained to me that there was nothing for men and requested me to do something for gents too. So I decided to do just that,” she says chuckling, adding that designing for men is much easier than women. “I can usually look at a guy and tell which colours or cuts will look good on them. With women it is more challenging. It could be that being a woman myself I see so many more choices and it gets confusing. With the men’s line I haven’t gone crazy just yet,” she says. Her clothes are usually in vibrant colours likes reds, yellows and greens and is also hugely inspired by the colours of Goa. She also aims at keeping her clothes in an affordable range and will be launching her website soon.
And by adding studio to her label name, Chowdhury is also looking at widening her base. “ The plan is to incorporate dance productions, yoga retreats etc all under one roof,” she says.
